I’m Not Talking to You

A brief examination of maturity, consideration, and a self-imposed communication gap.

“You’re really not going to leave that rubber ducky in there, are you?”

I‘m not talking to you.

If you’re the guy — and you’re probably a guy — that woke me up at 4:30 in the morning because you needed your tunes to start the day and set off three car alarms when you turned on your audio system, I’m not talking to you.

If you’re the person sitting in your car outside my apartment window screaming into your cell phone because the other person can’t hear you over your own boomcar music, I’m not talking to you.

If you’re the person who filled my email box with offers for Viagra or how to enhance my manhood, I’m definitely not talking to you.

If you’re the guy who peed on the toilet seat at the restaurant, casino, in the office, or the government building, I’m not talking to you.

If you’re the person who calls anyone an idiot who believes in a Higher Power, I’m not talking to you.

If you’re the person who condemns someone to Hell because that someone doesn’t believe in exactly the same God you do, I’m not talking to you.

If you’re the person who parked in the Fire Lane, potentially obstructing the efforts of emergency workers should the unthinkable happen, because you couldn’t be bothered to walk a few yards, I’m not talking to you.

If you’re the person who parked in the handicapped spot without a permit and made my wife walk several hundred more feet simply out of your selfishness, I’m not talking to you.

If you’re the person who jumped in front of me in the aisle while I was pushing my wife on one of those days when she needed her wheelchair, I’m not talking to you.

If you’re the person who charged me $780.00 for auto work that I not only didn’t need but that you didn’t do anyway, I’m not talking to you.

If you’re the guy weaving in and out of traffic, endangering everyone in sight because of some testosterone-driven need for adrenaline, I’m not talking to you.

If you’re the person who destroys anyone who gets in your way at work with whatever leverage you can scrounge up, I’m not talking to you.

If you’re the person who plays the race or sexist card to get ahead over anyone, I’m only talking to you at gunpoint.

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I’m not talking to you because what is painfully obvious to me is completely alien to you, so alien that we might as well be on two different planets.

I’m not talking to you because you wouldn’t understand what I have to say to you, and I’m sure I’m not the only one.

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Maybe the day will come that your bluff has been called, or your crime has been discovered, or fate has caught up with you and dealt you a card you can’t throw away.

Maybe the day will come when you look at your first mugshot.

Maybe the day will come when you look in the mirror, or look face first into that abyss in your own soul and you’ll see what you really are.

I’ve often felt like this while walking through life. I can’t say that I’m perfect and have never done something that would upset someone but I think it all comes down to intention. If you intend to do something to endanger, hurt, or belittle someone you deserve the statements above. However, if ever someone did something and corrected the action when given the knowledge and opportunity that is a far lesser injustice.

I agree. In some of the kinds of scenarios I’m describing here, the intent would be a consideration.

However, I would lay odds that in nearly all the scenarios described here, if the “perpetrator” were politely asked to change the behavior, the person would go out of their way to spite us.

Until that person recognizes the fundamental wrong of what they’re doing, they are a liability to the rest of the human race, and forces us to deal with him or her as such. This is selfishness, pure and simple.